The Lady from Shanghai is a sophisticated film noir about the difference between reality and illusion, but one could also say that it is a movie about creepy people doing creepy things in creepy places. For the first-time viewer, it may seem most like a film that is struggling to be coherent in spite of its leaving the audience with many unanswered questions, such as: what does the husband know and when? What are we to make of the wife’s mysterious past in Shanghai, her smoldering glances, and her inexplicable moodiness? Did she marry her husband to protect a secret? Is she in danger? With dialogue such as “Everything’s bad. You can’t fight it” and “It’s a bright, guilty world,” we might wonder where the characters’ bleak … Read the rest